Software engineer Richard Neal hadn't spent much time at sea when he placed the winning bid for an offshore former drilling platform situated along a shallow ocean stretch roughly 32 miles south of Bald Head Island, N.C.

"Dipping a toe in Galveston Bay waters was the closest I'd been. It was the only ocean I had set foot in prior to actually buying the tower," Neal, a Tulsa native, said of his pre-purchase sea life. He won the station at auction for a mere $85,000. "I thought (the lighthouse) was cool looking."

The Christmas Farm Inn and Spa is a charming bed and breakfast nestled in the white mountains in Jackson, New Hampshire

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Soon, people began reaching out to Neal, asking if they could board his new purchase for fishing trips. Their stays inspired an idea: Convert this historic vessel, with its picturesque views, into a unique bed-and-breakfast called the The Frying Pan Tower, an homage to its time as the U.S. Coastguard Frying Pan Light Station.

After two years of renovations, the Frying Pan's eight bedrooms, which formerly housed Coast Guard officers, now welcomes guests who pay $400 to $600 for a three-day, two-night stay.

"It's not really a get-rich place," said Neal, adding that they average between two and three trips per month. "(We) have no employees, it's completely manned by volunteers who reach out and want to donate their time. They get to stay for free."

The space, which originally had no water or electricity, now hosts fishing trips, snorkeling excursions, scuba diving parties and even one bachelorette party. There's even a golfing deck where guests can hit golf balls made of fish food into the sea.

Guests must be willing to boat or fly to the platform. There's a helipad at the top and the operation has an agreement with a helicopter company that had to get Federal Aviation Administration certification, register as an airline and obtain pontoons and other emergency gear. "That took years," Neal said.

His most memorable experience was during Hurricane Arthur in 2014, when winds of up to 100 mph lashed the structure.

He was out there with his two daughters, his son and a volunteer. Although it wound up being relatively uneventful, "My daughter was making a cake in the oven and it fell over," he said.

"What concerns people during a hurricane on land doesn't come into play on the (platform)," he said. There's no flooding, no worries of flying debris and minimal rocking.

Even with high winds, "it doesn't move," he said. "It was designed to have extra weight."

From the 1850's to today

The Frying Pan Tower was built in the 19th century as a floating lighthouse. It was originally stationed there in 1854, Neal said, to facilitate ship navigation through the shallow waters, dubbed the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," for its reputation of grounding ships.

In the 1960s it was converted into a drilling platform known as the "Texas Tower."

The Coast Guard decommissioned it in 2004, and it sat idle until a 2010 auction won by Neal.

When the government first placed the lighthouse on the auction block, bids exceeded $500,000, according to Neal's description of the sale. However, those bids were discarded due to a provision that restricted "examination until after the purchase was complete," a site for the unique rental explains.

That "led to a forfeiture of the auction," and Neal ended up the winner of the sale with a $85,000 sales tag.

Darla Guillen is a digital reporter. You can follow her on twitter at @darlaguillen.